Some Words...

When I was young my father would pick me up from school each day. When I got into his pickup truck he'd ask me, "What did you learn today." It wasn't an option to say, "Nothin'." I tried using that answer...Once. I'd sit there picking my brain trying to come up with something I'd learned but sometimes...actually most times, I couldn't think of anything to say. I tried making stuff up but as soon as my dad figured out my full proof plan he'd ask me to elaborate on my new found knowledge. My father was an English professor which allowed him to spot a Tall Tale a mile away, he knew fiction when he heard it. More than remembering the pressure of how it felt to be put in the hot seat, I remember how awful it felt seeing the disappointment in my father's eyes. He told me once that a day without learning something new, is a day I've walked through the world with my eyes and ears closed. Eventually I actually started thinking about what my answer would be before I got in the truck and I made it a point to pay attention to life so I'd catch any lesson that was thrown my way. My life has been spent learning. Sometimes the lessons were not easy ones, sometimes they left me feeling more ignorant then when I started out. But after the haze clears...the mind and the heart, each lesson was invaluable. Sometimes I try to remember the most important thing that I've ever learned but it's hard because there have been so many turning points in my life. If I had to pick just one I suppose it would be the day that I learned how to forgive. It was a lesson that saved me from myself.

How often can you sit down at the end of your day and think about something new you've learned? How often do you walk through the world with your eyes and ears closed because you think you've seen it all, you've learned all the lessons this life has to teach? How often do you challenge yourself to open up your eyes, your ears, your heart, and learn something? Those days when I stumble through the passing moments...those days are the ones I've wasted. I hate wasting things...this I've learned.